The Attic Garden
by GreenWood Elf
Summary: Ariana brought her flowers to the attic. She made a garden where there was none. Where sunlight fell through the windows, distorted into slats by the presence of iron bars. Barred windows to hold a barred mind.


**Author's Note: **I don't know what to think of this story. It was written more or less as a stream of conscious exercise for a Harry Potter horror challenge. My theme was the V.C. Andrews novel, "Flowers in the Attic" (notice my _most_ original title ^_^) although I'm not sure I did her gothic, family-angst book any justice. If you make it through this story, please let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by!

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership of Rowling's work.

**The Attic Garden**

"_I think of us more as flowers in the attic. Paper flowers. Born so brightly colored, and fading duller…"_

_-V.C. Andrews_

It was Aberforth who brought her the real flowers. Sickly, sweet things. Stain her tiny fingers with yellow pollen. And she'd hear the bonny little bees. The lovely little bees buzzing around and around and around. Around the garden she wasn't allowed into.

Look and don't touch, Ariana. Just look.

At first, she gathered the flowers into bunches and hung them for the rafters. It was her mother's idea. Keep things neat and tidy. Neat and safe.

But Ariana knew that flowers weren't supposed to hang upside down. Day after day, she lost her balance, staring up, up, up where the sky should have been. Clouds replaced with dried dandelions. Petalless fancies. Dead.

Ariana took them down from the ceiling. And she put them in the attic. She made a garden where there was none. Where the spiders composed sonatas on gossamer threads. Where sunlight fell through the windows, distorted into slats by the presence of iron bars.

Barred windows to hold a barred mind. Because inside her, there was a burning.

Aberforth helped her arrange the garden. They took the dead flowers and planted the stems in old milk pails with the moldy earth from behind the chicken coop. And they took apple seeds and sprigs of clover and other bits of magic to make the flowers bloom.

But the attic garden did not grow…no matter how many times Ariana watered it with her tears.

The flowers were hiding from her, just like she was hiding from the outside, because the outside was inside out. A place where people could do things and say things and Ariana could only watch.

So she stayed inside and tended the attic garden. At night, the spiders danced down from the ceiling on silken strings, shedding webs over windowsills and the empty milk pails. And Ariana would dance the mad, mad dance of the earth mother. Dance so that the floorboards would whine and whistle and she could pretend that the wind was blowing in through the barred windows.

But still the flowers did not grow. The attic garden was dead.

Ariana lay amidst the empty pails and listened to the flowers. But they did not speak, they did not speak because they were dead.

And then it was Aberforth who brought her the colored paper and stencils. Aberforth who spent a rainy afternoon with her cutting out shapes and cultivating the garden that refused to grow.

Roses. Lilies. A great big sunflower. They used twigs from the end of the old broom for stems and stuck the flowers in the floorboards. Tucked them by the casement. Wrapped them round the rusty nails and yes, even hung them from the ceiling.

And Ariana had her attic garden. And the world was no longer grey, but shades of pastel blue and pollen yellow and fierce, fierce red.

She was so excited. So very happy. When Aberforth left, she ran her hands over the walls to make sure they were still immovable, let her fingers touch the rusty nails.

The red became real. Crimson. It dripped down her palms and watered the garden.

And it was Albus who found her. Albus of the blazing, blazing bright eyes. Albus who liked things ordered and sensible and hidden.

He came through the attic door, straight shoulders stooped to accommodate the slanting ceiling. But he did not see the garden. Only crudely cut paper. Only his frenzied sister.

"Ugh, what a mess!" He looked at her garden and frowned.

Ariana held out one hand to him. Showed him the red roses on her fingers.

Albus recoiled. "Mother will be furious with you. And what…_what_ is this nonsense." He reached out and touched one of the paper flowers. The petal tore, broke off in his hand.

And Ariana screamed.

It came from inside her, that scream, bringing the burning to the surface. The red that was not red, but black. The outside world that was inside out. The magic she could never control…

Her scream brought Kendra Dumbledore running, ready as always to hush up her poor, mad child. Her poor, mad lamb.

But Ariana was in her garden. And when she was in her garden, the magic inside her grew, grew, grew.

And grew.

The explosion killed her mother. And it killed the garden. Burnt paper petals and singed stems severed the pearly spider webs. The red, red roses turned black. The milk pails shattered. But the windows, ah, the windows, stayed securely barred.

Ariana watched her attic garden die. And once more, the world was shaded with grey and dead, damned flowers that hung from the rafters.


End file.
